FG, World Bank, others verify gas flare sites

The Programme Coordinator of the Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Justice Derefaka, says the federal government has commenced the verification of gas flare sites across the country.

Derefaka disclosed this at the Gas Buyers’ Forum, organised by the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria, in Abuja, on Wednesday.

He said that the federal government had discovered that there were at least 178 sites where gas were flared, as opposed to 140 sites listed in the past.

He said the verification exercise was conducted in conjunction with the World Bank, United States Agency for International Development, USAID, and the Canadian government.

According to him, the verification was still ongoing, as only 60 per cent of the expected data had been received, while the rest were being awaited.

He explained that the essence of embarking on the verification exercise was to address issues of bankability and the need to attract investors and financiers to the gas flare commercialisation initiative.

He said that the overall idea was that the country must have a credible, measurable, attainable data that was bankable, so that it would be an investment-grade data for investors and lenders to put their money.

Derefaka noted that by the time investors saw that the World Bank had done a lot of studies with the Federal Government, and the remaining sites were verified, they would come in and make investment.

“We have bankability issues, because data is very key to us. Without accurate data, gas flare data, then this programme is dead on arrival.

“What we are doing beyond the data that we have at the National Depository in DPR, is that we are going beyond what they have, and we have sent a special template we designed with the World Bank and the USAID, asking for unique data sets from the producers, and it would amaze you what we found out.

“What we know in this country is that we have 139, 140 gas flare sites, but by our verification with our partners, we found out that we have 178.

“That in itself is not complete, because we are around 60 per cent, 40 per cent data is missing, some of the information is inaccurate. We are doing a detailed information request in the DPR office in Lagos so that we can send this information and get these things back. Then these things might increase.

“In this country, right now, we have 178 gas flare sites of the 16,000 that we have globally in 19 countries,’’ he said.

He added that daily, around 755 million SCF per day was flared.

He noted that the Federal Government would soon carry out a market study, to determine what the buyers need, their appetite and the volume of gas they need, so that it can help the investors understand the needs and demands in the market.

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